>> here are some programs to look out for this weekend: the 2012 rose about reading festival. whether president roosevelt's policies and legacy, the entire event will rear tonight starting at midnight and tomorrow at 3:30 a program with kevin malware and rich white on u.s. special forces capture of shade rivera. at 6:00 to to recent reports of the city of detroit filing bankruptcy we bring you a collection of books on american

cities. you can watch these and more on booktv. visit booktv.org. >> for 30 years john hunter has led questions in the world peace game in which students take the rules of world leaders and work to solve international disputes. in his book "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements," mr. hunter talks about what he has learned about international diplomacy from his students. this event was hosted by park rose books in charlotte, north carolina. it is about 50 minutes. >> good evening. my name is john hunter and i am the author of "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements" and we are here in charlotte, north carolina. letting folks at home know where we are too.

thank you for coming out tonight. i will talk for a few moments and then we would like -- we have some questions from the audience. this book is a labor of a lot of people. i thought when i started to become a writer i would write a book by myself but it takes a huge organization to write a good book and the organization we have, this is a book published in new york, the cynthia canal with every agency got involved in how to make this possible. the book has come out in april of 2013 and i have been on for promoting and sharing the book with people across the country actually and it appears to be -- the book is about the world peace game. you might have heard about it, a geopolitical simulations that created 35 years ago when i

tossed in richmond public schools, richmond, va.. i was the beginning teacher and didn't know what i was doing. i had no idea what to do but the key thing that made it difference was my supervisor at the time when i asked her what i should do thinking i was going to get an instruction manual and some guidance, she didn't. she asked me what do you want to do? you might have heard me say before, it really upset me. i was a young teacher waiting for guidance, and would do things right and do things well and instead of giving me specific directions she opened this large space for me, this big space and this empty space became the templates for everything after that. the first thing i did was the world peace game. i had to create a curriculum because there wasn't any. in public schools, va. doing

what i wanted to do i didn't know what that was but i thought i would try to do what my great mentors and other graduate schools advised me. to the children and students are, really get to know them and find out what their passions are, what they love, what they care about. find out what they care about and build curriculum to that work around that. their love, drive the curriculum. they will be in charge, their work they are doing. i asked my students the first year, 1978, what do you care about. and individual from 1978, and we didn't have computers believe it or not. so use their passion, we have to

have a board game. i was teaching social studies, if i was in africa that year. african board games put those two together. and a curriculum full and to use the modern term i did not match up. and created a first five foot plywood board game called the world peace game. it was about africa, but i thought how many adventures -- it is called the world peace game. and i would take the problems of the continent's, in the country teams, the objective was to solve the problem. let's make it more interesting, improve all the countries at the

same time. they rose to the challenge, these ninth graders and have been playing the game since 1978. i use a real country, but later i stopped using real countries that used fictional countries because students were not winning the game very well after a few years. i did know why and i questioned them and finally it came to light. and ask our parents and they were not solving them. so kept the real problems, modified them so they were appropriate and kept them going so the world peace game from its 4 by 5 foot plywood floor is a 4 by 4 foot by 4 foot plexiglas power, it towers over most of my fourth graders, and this tower

and the late hour if, and there are four, 4 x 4 quarter inch sheet of plexiglass one above the other to create it power space horizontal lee and each layer we have hundreds of game pieces mostly from hobby shops and toy stores. i corrected them over the decades. and the undersea level. and coral reefs and dangerous species down there and little figures. there's a space level on top, and most of my fourth graders scattered with a small crystal for stars, space stations, satellites, research and killer satellites, asteroid mining and black hole with a black hole rescue scenario for the end. the next level down above my students's eye level is the

aircraft levelland what we use for weather and clouds, moves around to change the way they are, and on that level air force from different aerospace and the four countries to the ground and sea level so there are four countries of varying whelks and assets that we mark on each side of the plexiglas shields. their cities, towns, countries, universities, armies, navies, factories, and students are divided into four teams, prime minister, secretary of state, minister of defense, chief financial officer, united nations body with a few students, world bank body and arms dealers. put that into the other questionable side about human nature and eagerly play the

role. and random stock market and random -- random events to determine the severity of emergencies or good fortune. we also have a center, this is not always but sometimes in the office that student is my best student, i want to use that student's skill sets so i asked that student would you use your ability to get in trouble so much and cause so much disruption to the good of the game and other students and they jump at the chance so that student has to have a two infold job. they are playing their role in the world peace game, trying to win the game, there are two objectives to solve the crises and raise asset values beyond the starting point, trying to do that, senator confusion agent and at the same time through this information, ambiguities,

irrelevancies, misleading, they cannot lie out right, they are trying to destroy the entire game so they are playing our dark side in a way and gleefully so. we all know that person is there, automatically the knowledge of that person's existence forces everyone to have to consider more deeply everything in the room, every nuance, every gesture, every line of thought so we are trying to increase critical and creative thinking by presenting an opportunity for students to probe more deeply into everything. parents are not always as they seem. that is our complement of students, i give them the dossier, each was a top secret dossier that is top-secret on it. they have documents which are linked to trade agreements, tariffs, fines and fees and

trees and inventories and expediters forums and so forth, 25 pages of documents and they also have a 13 page crisis document, 50 interlocking problems we ripped from the headlines and modified and interlocked them so that every crisis as far as possible is connected to every other crisis in every way possible. this is economically and militarily and socially so that if one crisis change, everything else changes as much as possible. we are trying to complex of 5 the situation because we really believe they can handle it. we don't break things down into smaller bite sized pieces thinking they're poor little minds can't handle the complexity. we believe children actually can so we give them the challenge and asked them to rise to a. 50 interlocking problems, every country's asset value must be above the starting point. there are poor countries, wealthy countries, the range countries in economics and i

will choose the leadership of all of our bodies. each country of the world bank and so forth and they choose their team, world bank chooses its cfo, the united secretary general chooses his or her deputy secretary and so forth. each countryosing its own cabinet. game starts with students in herring crises and every way imaginable and crises range from ethnic and religious and minority struggles, hazardous-waste, nuclear proliferation, water rights issues, breakaway republics, climate change, oil spills, endangered species, everything i could think of is all tied together as one big messy problem and the odd thing is the game is designed to fail, designed to fail massively at first. failure is a part of life.

we call it bad but have taken the stigma out of it, conditions that exist we want to change. success is a condition that exists. we would like to last a little bit logger but they will alternate as they do in real life so we are not protecting students from the reality but in a safe, appropriate way having them work through failure as well as live through success which has its own problems. they take that challenge and immediately go in to despair because everything falls apart and nothing works, it fails. it is supposed to. it mirrors life and the thing that holds us together is the relationship we have between teacher and student which is fundamental to teaching and when earnings. i have to know them. i have to care about them. we have to understand each other and when we have that kind of respect we finally have not a teacher and 25 or 30 students but 30, 31 co teachers in the

room empowered to take learning on to themselves. when they asked me a question i am famous for saying i don't know the answer and ask them what they think but it is true. i don't know the answer and i admit the truth right up front. i don't know everything even though i'm in the front of the room and a so-called teacher, we are all here to learn something and help each other so with that sudden rephrasing of the question or read directing of the question back to them they think for themselves i see them shake their heads, mr. hunter doesn't no. we have to help him. seem to develop compassion for me. they say this man needs help. we need to put our head together and get him out of this jam because he is not sure. we work on problems together. in the game like and advise or change policy or direct. i can only ask questions or remind them of possible consequences whatever they are but they can do whatever is they want. it is fair game. they can go to war if they want

or do espionage or have trade deals and be unbalanced and hopefully in that environment they learn what works and what doesn't and the remarkable thing is after years and decades of doing this, they always always always come out on the side of compassion and taking care of everyone. they always do. even though i put in fiendish situations attempting to the reactionary and impulsive and do the wrong thing, they still find a way through that to take care of everybody on the planet and solve all 50 of those interlocking problems. every time i play the game i am afraid and go in thinking it isn't going to work this time. maybe they will launch a nuclear weapon. i can't stop them. but they never have. they have come close a few times in the pretty dark day in it many times because they have gone the distance, gone as far as humans will go in exploring the dark side of things but they

turn around on their own and there is a moment where they all sort of understand they are not playing against each other as mr. hunter positive in his fiction, they're playing against again. when they realize you can feel the electricity change and suddenly they start playing against the game and enter what the author who wrote a book called flow a couple decades ago, they enter a state called flow where they seem to master everything. times seems to either speed up or slow down to glacial speed is and they feel they are masters of their own universe. they can solve every problem and at that point quite easily gone reasonably and feasible the and the weather goddess' decrees whether it is reasonable or free -- checks the internet to see if it is a possibility but they do this time and time again and that state of logos on minutes

or even an hour. it is the miraculous thing to see, children in full powered, full understanding managing to save and keel and fix the world's creative, fresh ideas and no input from adults. it moves me every time i see it. it is a remarkable thing to see and they do every time even though the situation is impossible. i can't solve the world peace game. i invented it and can't solve it. i don't know how they do it but it takes all of them, every one of them is required and at the end when they reach the master restage can we have more problems? i know class is almost over but how about a few more? we have to go, time is almost up, we can't have any more, but we have to create some more. or we attack each other for no reason just to create more problems. they do that out of finance look at me with a sly smile know we can master any problems why not

take on a few more for the fun of it. they leave the classroom with such confidence, such positive attitudes, one student, we wonder how this game simulation carries over to the real world, 30 years of data in a sense and one student year after we played in 2006 named amelia who is in the film world peace, the same as the book here, the film maker, independent filmmaker made a documentary film about this game and it became more about teachers and teaching, not just about me. chris's film is seen worldwide. the joke is it is a great film even though i am in it. it has gone all over the world and won a number of awards and is a 56 minute documentary but in the film, very fiery young girl, prime minister of the

country, having the greatest challenge came through the world peace game having some water rights issues and all kinds of problems like that and the next year she read in the fifth grade class about a village in mozambique that have water problems, the water was contaminated and people were dying, she also discovered it took $100 to get some fresh water, a fresh water well put in so amelia having had similar problems in the world peace game organized a charity of her fellow students collecting their pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters and got together $100 at an adult facility to transfer and had a well put in in mozambique and saved lives. 10-year-old girl inspired by her realistic real-life experience in a simulation about the real world. i don't know how you great that. there's a lot of talk about

grading, teaching to the test and that kind of thing and i have my own opinions but i would just ask how do you grade something like that? you didn't save two villages? you go beyond that simple concept of making a snapshot of a student's ability and wisdom with a letter grade and we are talking about as my colleague who is a great educational consultant, a test is a snapshot. when you are trying to get the big picture you want a full photo album, a whole portfolio, don't depend on a single snapshot to determine someone's fate or understand their life. so amelia and other students have shown us that, year after year, that has an effect known as the world peace gambit great teachers all over america. now that i have a partnership

with the martin institute for teaching in memphis, tenn. director jamie baker and i travel around the world now presenting the world peace game and its principals and inspiring other rigid cater to do their own best work. what we find is there are so many great teachers in the the world, astounding numbers of great teachers doing fantastic things but do we see them? we see a film now and then about a disaster in some classrooms somewhere, we have this idea that everything is falling apart. my experience has been there are so many fantastic teacher is doing great work and students are doing really well in a lot of places so i am inspired and optimistic about education. we have our problems. one of them is test preoccupation. we have to have some feedback and information to help guide us

but if the emphasis is so strong in that direction we can see the rearview mirror, see where we have been and gutted the look at ourselves and can see the landscape in front of us. that would be my only comment about that. this book "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements" has announced public television across america several times. the rights have been bought for viewing on television in a number of countries, norway, israel, south korea, romania, an area, estonia. chris is very happy to have his success with this and it is all about a single teacher. when i see is still my see myself but i see myself disappear literally. i see a very easy thing happening. i see myself teaching but i see my teachers teaching through me. i see my mother, my fourth grade

teacher in the 1968s and that turned out really well. everything came out and we became more at one. my mother's gesture and my gesture, my smile, my tenth grade geometry teacher, the way she put her hand on the desk is the way i put my hand on the desk when i get over to my desk which is hardly ever. all those experiences have gone into making every effort i can manage to be the teachers so i owe a huge debt of gratitude to all those teachers, we all do. that is my lineage. will come from somewhere. somebody made it possible to be here. without them we would not have survived. from the very first day. we avoid huge debt to so many people and i do too. if i started thinking people we would be here all night but i

would like to thank chris for bringing it to light. so many good teachers don't have the fortunes, better teachers than i am having the camera in their classroom so i feel the great responsibility to tell you about those teachers. you may hear about the world peace game and things in the book and stories that are fun and interesting, that is just the tip of the iceberg. not all lee teachers and educator's the community members are working hard to try to help and son, and known, and paid sometimes, just to try to make things better. this bookstore having me come all the way from virginia just to talk about this book about teachers, about education so again i could talk all night and relate stories from the book, one final thing and open up for questions if you have any.

the film lead us to silicon valley a couple years ago. we screen the film for a design firm, the premier design firm on the planet i am told, they design everything from shopping carts to satellites to band-aids, beautiful people, lovely campus in silicon valley and they asked to screen this film "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements," they asked to see the game so chris and i went out and showed up the film and they were excited. they called quote we were doing design thinking. i don't know what that is but it sounds good. i will accept it. it sounds wonderful, thank you. at the end of the screening, this will appointed young woman came up, great shoes, fantastic clove, lovely hair, beautiful jewelry and handed me a card and said we would like to see you

and the card said pentagon:defense department. i am sure we will have time to come and see, we will makes and time so chris and i were invited to the defense department on behalf of the undersecretary of defense. when we got to the pentagon and went through all the security, small-town filmmaker, small-town school teacher went inside this huge building, 17 miles of always i understand, and we had the most amazing revelation. chris's film "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements," a 56 minute documentary about a small-town school teacher in the blue ridge mountains of virginia playing that geopolitical simulation had been screened four times in the pentagon by policy and military people. we were stunned and they screamed it again with us there and turned to a sense that we want to talk to you about this

world peace game. the game came out of an empty space, you didn't know how to start, there was nothing there, you created it and the game seems to be about no answers being present, the empty space of answers and we need more of that year. almost seemed like there was a piece swing in the pentagon. we had this two our sincere discussion with them about space, had been at war for ten years, we are tired, we're suffering, we need answers from wherever we can find them and it was an eye opening thing we thought of as the monolithic faceless military machine, turns out they were people and they were in dire straits about this situation so we went home and just really thoughtful. weekly got a phone call, we would like you to bring your students to the pentagon and play the world peace game and talk to them and get some ideas.

you can imagine how i felt as a teacher so my students rose to the challenge. studied real world countries to be prepared for the real world at the pentagon and pakistan and nigeria and india and desk chiefs, staff chief and staff member, economic, political, military and social issues for each country they were assigned to created a white paper full of information, had top-secret dossiers and started the game with them as they walked down the halls of the pentagon, top secret dossier and got a lot of respect, actually we were met by approval of policy, military people, two, three, four star generals who spent the entire morning with my students not in a photo opportunity that having a policy discussion with 9-year-old veteran diplomats. they would ask questions like how do you handle insurgents?

the students would answer. how do you handle climate change consideration? here's what we do, what do you do and students would answer. an amazing experience to be in the room for. to this our kids having the great time taking the floor, thrilled about the building in the center of the pentagon the soviets targeted during the cold war thinking it was an underground information bunker and was a hot dog stand in the center of the pentagon building structure but after the tour there was a door open, we were ushered into the office of the then defense secretary mr. leon panetta, there was the grand man himself in his coat and tie, warm and affable and welcomes students into his office. there was a stone from osama bin

laden's compound and coming to his office putting hands on the desk, don't touch all of those, but he had a discussion about -- policy discussion. not a photo opportunity. talk to them about strategy, here is the problem, how do you deal with it? he had ten minutes, state for half an hour, took off his coat, gave a tour of the office and trying to get to the next meeting over at the capitol or the white house he stopped and did the most amazing thing, the military did something called:mr. james, military leaders have a special metalcoin even for something above and beyond the call.

every one of our students got acoin and i heard from a staffer that that has never happened. general martin dempsey of the joint chiefs of staff said world peace game delegation, i would like tocoin you too. despite our feelings about like being the pacifist and being in this hall of war and yet meeting all these people doing their best to help us out, quite a moving and conflicting and wonderful thing at the same time. that is a story of the pentagon. and one more story and time for you to ask questions.

we went to nashville, tenn. jamie baker and myself giving talks at the school. this young man came to pick us up at the airport, he was a teacher at ease school and he had nice shoe loaf, well-to-do, thought we had him figured out, privileged kid, got it made, teacher at the school, what does he know. he said i saw the film "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements". i liked that film. do you really? very nice, thank you. what did you like about it? i liked that you had students write that wetter. the world peace game as a military commander or a leader, the little plastic troops in battle and lose is them, you got to write a better to the fictional parents of fictional soldiers explaining what happened and offering condolences. fourth graders don't take it seriously, do a good job, brief

couple paragraphs. the gentleman in the car said i like that, having the right letters. why is that? because up until year-and-a-half ago i was a marine military commander and i fought in afghanistan and iraq and did several tours and i fought in the battle of fallujah which was one of the worst street battles in recent history. all he would say about that was it was a connecticut situation. i am glad you had to write that letter because when i was the commander i had to write that letter. i had to make a phone call to the parents, i had to go to the home with the parents and tell from what had happened to their son or daughter. so you keep having them write

that letter just so they have an idea of the consequences of what war is. is a bloodless way, that is great but you keep the letter in the game, very important. i don't know if i could have gotten a better affirmation. we were playing get something, this young man had lived-under the most terrible situation, circumstances. my students are playing so sometimes they don't have to do what he has done. thank you for listening to me ramble on. any questions about the game, how it works, how it is played, would you like to fly it, we can turn this table around but if you have any ideas or questions or comments please feel free, would love to hear them. yes, sir? >> dimensions the one who did

the charity, any students in the future, have they gone on to do diplomatic things with secret interests? >> that is a great question. kind of a bittersweet question because as a teacher, students leave your classroom and if you are at the top level of elementary school they leave your school when you may never see them again, may never know what happened. literally you can lie awake at night wondering what happened to this kid or that can see their faces and don't know what happened and wonder but through social media a lot of my students are coming back. one printed to the student is irene newman who played the game 17 years ago, saying i saw your talk about world peace game and

i played that game and the last week 10 minutes of the game i started crying. i remember that game because when i played the game you let me do everything wrong. you let me be a black-market arms dealer, let me divide the un, tried to have a coup and failed but the game allows this, allows all kinds of things to be walked out, and i am in war and peace studies and international diplomacy and security issues at the university of north carolina chapel hill and i solve diplomatic problems, when i get a diplomatic problem my fingers start tingling because i am so excited about working with diplomacy. my professors can't understand why i am so good at it. i have been doing it since i was 9 years old, she wrote a letter on our web site, there are letters that come from students

like that. one student said she was a facilitator world general in the world peace game which was my assistant and basically moved me out of a dog and took over. and in hawaii, memories of the world peace game make a living here tolerable. what do you know? that is on our web site so we are getting some great feedback and we do go on. it is a wonderful thing for a teacher to hear from a student who comes back to let them know what happened. yes, sir? >> i heard about your book on audio, the saboteur, what are the abilities the saboteur being used besides hiring mercenaries? >> good question. what kind of senator, what are

the abilities and capacities and capabilities of a senator? that is a high functioning student who can think of two lines to win the game sincerely and try to destroy the game at the same time. mostly what happens is up here. wise enough to be able, more interesting and difficult and challenging and at the same time with the same mind try their best to solve all the problems they have been given and the problems they create. some was impossible but our best senators do that. i don't want to give away too many of their tricks but in the film "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements," hayden realized they were about to catch up with him and figure out who the senator was, the beginning close, clues were coming out. he didn't want to give up the

roll. was too important, what did he do? he talked to me. they are going to find out who i am. what can i do to misdirect their investigation? so he called in a missile strike on his own capital. incredible decision. completely misdirected or redirected suspicion from himself. he was brought to trial because charges were dismissed because nobody would believe he would do such a thing and subterfuge didn't work, and amazing strategy and it was a sacrifice he made for the good of the game. that is one of the tools. mostly the tools are here but he has a small budget, he or she, sometimes girls are mercenaries as well. a few mercenaries, a couple thousand, stinger missiles,

something like that but mostly of here. at the end of the game power centers always cheered and celebrated. you think everybody would be upset, what did you do that to us for? they're so happy that you made it harder for us, you made it more interesting, you made a better game, thank you for that and so it is an odd thing to see the person who is trying to destroy it because of their cleverness using their cleverness to help us, that person is celebrating. how old are you? >> 11. >> perfect. fill out an application and we will see what we can do. you have experience already. you might be too good. any other questions? >> un third my question about the pentagon, but talking about different levels of making the game part of the curriculum. >> we have been approached

almost since the film came out, the first things that came to mind was can we put this on line? can we make a video game and i have been against that for the longest time. i thought no, it is a visceral in-your-face quesnay, but hispanic, tactical experience. why would we take that away and put you with a group of strangers? is based on relationships. put you on an online video game and of course the game may have war in it but it is about achieving peace and it is designed to fail. the first was about manufacturing the game and putting it in the box to sell. we thought no, if we do that nobody is going to buy it because who will say i won the game that is going to fail. that is the one i want. give me that game. we didn't think we would have much in the way of sales.

maybe a few people, maybe a seventh term. we were approached by game design companies so engineers to think about how we might augment the physical game through videoconferenceing and quite a bit of interest from european friends in norway and austria particularly, taiwan as well and china about sharing this exercise. we are trying to do it in an authentic way that maintains essential elements but we want to make it a legacy so after i am gone it can be in its original form or at least close to it, maybe better sunday. all right. one more. >> a does beg the question if a group of fourth graders can have world peace was are the

possibilities for those of us who are young at heart or use of all age >> don't we wish. each young person could be the answer to any problem. we don't know. we cannot afford to lose anybody, not one single person. we can't afford to write anybody off. for those young at heart like high school students and young adults who have played this game they play the most amazing sophisticated games. i have no doubt that high school students and college students could save this world. i have seen them do this in a relentless compassionate way, left no obstacle, no stone unturned and time and time again they found reasonable practical ways of doing this, simply refused to not save the planet

no matter how fierce, how fiendishly the interlocking problems, they would not stop until they saved it. that gives me great hope, knowing every child that comes alone could be the next president, the next cure for cancer, we never know so we have got to make every possible effort for every possible child so they can help us fix the mess we have left them and we have left them a huge problem. we haven't fixed it. we don't have enough time ourselves and they have to come along so we are giving them a huge burden and asking them to help us save us and save themselves. i hope the adult can take heed to and and it is hopeful that people like the pentagon and we showed the film of the united nations looking into it and asking questions of fourth graders about what we might do

to make things better. i think we are about done for the evening. i want to thank you, and thank park roads books in charlotte, north carolina and hard core publishing company, chris arena's film documentary on world peace and great achievements -- "world peace and other 4th-grade achievements," and my literary agent cynthia canal in new york for all making this possible. and all my teachers whose shoulders stand to be here tonight with you. thank you for coming. i really appreciate it. >> you are watching booktv, and nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. next, william perry pendley talks about ronald reagan's energy and environmental policies and discusses president reagan's efforts to balance environmental protection and economic growth. this hour-long event